A small number of Stop Urban Shield coalition protesters were arrested as they tried to hang a banner and block Gate 8 into the Alameda County Fairgrounds in Pleasanton, Calif., on Friday, Sept. 9, 2016. Urban Shield is an event for law enforcement that includes SWAT training and disaster preparedness.

PLEASANTON — This week’s Urban Shield “real time training for real world events” will be the last of its kind in Alameda County with a militaristic bent.

The purpose of the five-day Urban Shield event, which starts Thursday and lasts until Monday, is to train emergency personnel around the Bay Area for things such as national disasters, active shooters and terrorism attacks.

But that focus will change under a condition the Alameda County Board of Supervisors imposed in March when accepting a $5.5 million grant from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security so Sheriff Greg Ahern can host the exercise.

After years of public outcry that Urban Shield underscores a militarization of local law enforcement, the board decided that, starting next year, future exercises should focus on responding to events such as natural disasters instead of terrorism. The supervisors also agreed to appoint an ad hoc committee to make recommendations to them next year.

“Urban Shield as we know it ends after this year,” Supervisor Keith Carson said at the end of that meeting. He also called the program’s name “volatile.”

The Stop Urban Shield Coalition, which has held various protests against the event in recent years, also plans to hold a “Farewell to Urban Shield” rally Friday in front of the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office in Oakland. The organization will be represented on the ad hoc committee and “will be working to ensure that supervisors remain accountable to their decision and prioritize alternative emergency preparedness programs,” the group said in a statement.

Stop Urban Shield opposes the SWAT training that has been a part of the event.

In the view of sheriff’s spokesman Sgt. Ray Kelly, the event is already evolving.

“Is it the end of Urban Shield? No, it’s not,” Kelly said. “It’s being refined, it’s being evolved and changed.”

Besides its military-like training, Urban Shield has been criticized for its vendor choices. The event typically has a vendor show at the Alameda County Fairgrounds in Pleasanton. About five years ago, an Urban Shield vendor sold “Black Rifles Matter” T-shirts during the time the Black Lives Matter movement was making waves.

Last year, the Oath Keepers, which the Southern Poverty Law Center describes as one of the largest radical anti-government groups in the nation, also participated in Urban Shield.

But Kelly said things have changed. Those vendors are no longer allowed at Urban Shield, he said, and they will not be allowed to sell or trade any firearms at the event.

Urban Shield has been the subject of many protests since it began in the aftermath of 9/11. Oakland dropped out of the training years ago, and a divided Berkeley council approved taking part this year only by a single vote.

Even this year’s Urban Shield is already very different than in years past and more “community inclusive,” Kelly said. People are interested in the community preparedness for national disasters, such as earthquakes, or fires, especially given the amount of recent fires in the state.

As part of Saturday’s program, Alameda County will host a “Community Preparedness Fair” at 3Crosses Church in Castro Valley where the public can experience training classes such as how to make a simple personal safety kit, “stop the bleeding” and “camping out at home” preparedness for seniors and those with disabilities. The event is expected to attract more than 1,000 people.

Also new this year will be training for law enforcement officers and emergency medical service workers on the opioid crisis. In June, two deputies were exposed to the airborne drug during an investigation and saved because of the antidote.

There will also be more of an emphasis on fire training this year, after devastating blazes such as last year’s North Bay fires or this summer’s Carr fires have ravaged the state, Kelly said.

Kelly pointed out the event is about 25 percent tactical training, such as SWAT, with the rest being fire, EMS and bomb-preparedness and emergency management.

The training concludes Monday with a dinner and a special guest, speaker Leon Panetta, former President Barack Obama’s secretary of defense and director of the CIA, who also served as former President Bill Clinton’s White House chief of staff and is a former Congressman.